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Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime AUTHOR: NICHOLAS E

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Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime AUTHOR: NICHOLAS E HOW WWI CHANGED AMERICA Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime AUTHOR: NICHOLAS E. CODDINGTON, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CONTEXT Although the United States is a nation with defined rights protected by a constitution, sometimes those rights are challenged by the circumstances at hand. This is especially true during wartime and times of crisis. As Americans remained divided in their support for World War I, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration and U.S. Congress pushed pro- war propaganda and enacted laws meant to deter anti-war protesting. When war protests did arise, those who challenged U.S. involvement in the war faced heavy consequences, including jail time for their actions. Many questioned the pro-war campaign and its possible infringement on Americans’ First Amendment freedoms, including the right to protest and freedom of speech. Using World War I as a backdrop and the First Amendment as the test, students will examine the Sedition Act of 1918 and come to realize that Congress passed laws that violated the Constitution and that the Supreme Court upheld those laws. Additionally, students will be challenged to consider the role President Wilson had in promoting an anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and how that rhetoric emboldened Congress to pass laws that violated the civil rights of all Americans. The lesson will wrap up challenging students to consider the responsibilities of citizens when they believe the president and Congress promote legislation that infringes on First Amendment rights. PRIMARY SOURCES Eugene Debs Speech at Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918 (excerpt) Woodrow Wilson, State of the Union Address, December 7, 1915 (excerpt) Indiana State University Teaching American History http://debs.indstate.edu/d288c3_1971.pdf https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/state-of-the- union-address-104/ Sedition Act of 1918, (excerpt) WWI Document Archive, Brigham Young University Library https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Sedition_Act SECONDARY SOURCES Mark Ruffalo, Eugene Debs Speech at Canton, Ohio (re-enacted excerpt) Zinn Education Project https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/eugene-debs-canton-ohio/ OBJECTIVES At the end of this activity, students will be able to: • Understand that the U.S. government passed laws during World War I that infringed upon First Amendment rights and that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld those laws; • Discuss in small and large groups if the U.S. government should be allowed special powers during wartime and times of crisis that restrict Constitutionally protected freedoms, First Amendment rights specifically; and • Think about the role citizens should take in challenging presidential speeches and Congressional laws they believe are unconstitutional or will result in trespassing upon rights guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution. HOW WWI CHANGED AMERICA Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime Teacher Instructions • Make one copy of the document packet for each • Ask students to read and respond to the Sedition Act student. excerpt in groups. When complete, bring students • Divide the class into groups of four to five students back together as a group and share their discussions. each. *Teacher Tip: As you moderate the discussion, • Remind students that President Woodrow Wilson ask students to make any connections they think campaigned for the 1916 election on a platform of are appropriate between the rhetoric in Wilson’s isolationism and to keep the U.S. out of World War I, State of the Union speech and the passage of which began in 1914. He knew that strong economic the Espionage and Sedition Acts. Students may ties to the Allied powers could necessitate American begin to link what Wilson did to any current involvement in the conflict. Wilson began targeting examples; save those discussions for the end immigrants, socialists, and labor leaders (supporters of class. Keep students on track and have them of American isolation) and began a campaign to focus on Wilson’s actions and the passage of the disparage them and label them as un-American and Espionage and Sedition Acts. disloyal. • Introduce Eugene Debs and explain he was a • Distribute one document packet to each student. socialist, pacifist, labor leader, and former presidential • Ask students to work in groups to complete the candidate. activity and question connected to Wilson’s State of • Ask students to read the excerpt from his speech in the Union Address (1915). Canton, Ohio and respond to the questions. • Ask students to discuss in their small groups the *Teacher Tip: If desired, students can watch the influence they think a president can have on domestic video clip re-enacting the speech. policies and Constitutional rights. • Let students know that Debs entered prison in *Teacher Tip: Depending on time constraints, April 1919. President Wilson denied him a pardon this activity can be completed as a whole group in January 1921, but President Warren G. Harding or individually. commuted Debs’ sentence on December 23, 1921. • Remind students that the United States entered • Bring the class together and lead a wrap-up World War I on April 6, 2017. On June 15, 1917, discussion. Some questions may include: Congress passed the Espionage Act, which made it • Do you think essential freedoms of the Constitution a crime to speak out against the war effort. This was should be sacrificed during wartime or times of national followed by the Sedition Act, which passed Congress crisis? Which one(s)? In what circumstances? on May 16, 1918. This act updated the Espionage • If a citizen believes that the president, Congress, or Act and enhanced the provisions that restricted free the U.S. Supreme Court has promoted or affirmed the speech and a free press. passage of legislation that they believe is unconstitutional, what responsibilities does he or she have? Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime Document Packet WOODROW WILSON, STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, DECEMBER 7, 1915 (EXCERPT) Teaching American History https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/state-of-the-union-address-104/ DIRECTIONS: Highlight or underline the passages of the speech that demonstrate President Wilson’s views on immigrants. “...I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue… “...America never witnessed anything like this before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that little, but how heroic, nation that in a high day of old staked its very life to free itself from every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of the older nations and set up a new standard here, that men of such origins and such free choices of allegiance would ever turn in malign reaction against the Government and people who had welcomed and nurtured them and seek to make this proud country once more a hotbed of European passion. A little while ago such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was incredible we made no preparation for it. We would have been almost ashamed to prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our own comrades and neighbors! But the ugly and incredible thing has actually come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out…” QUESTION: Do you think President Wilson views immigrants who became naturalized citizens as equal citizens of the nation? Why or why not? Provide specific references to the speech to support your answer. Rights and Responsibilities in Wartime Document Packet SEDITION ACT OF 1918, SECTION 3 (EXCERPT) World War I Document Archive, Brigham Young University Library https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Sedition_Act “SECTION 3. Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements,...or incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct...the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, or...shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States...or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully...urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production...or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both....” LIST FOUR SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM THE SEDITION ACT THAT MAY VIOLATE THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE U.S.
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